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Famous Peasants Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Peasants poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous peasants poems. These examples illustrate what a famous peasants poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Yeats, William Butler
...reamed that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
She was more beautiful than thy first love,
But now lies under boards....Read more of this...



by Masters, Edgar Lee
...
When the wine and bread were passed,
Came the reconciliation for us --
Us the ploughmen and the hewers of wood,
Us the peasants, brothers of the peasant of Galilee --
To us came the Comforter
And the consolation of tongues of flame!...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...awberries were found 
 And citrons, apples too, and nectarines. 
 The wooden bowls were carved in cunning lines 
 By peasants of the Murg, whose skilful hands 
 With patient toil reclaim the barren lands 
 And make their gardens flourish on a rock, 
 Or mountain where we see the hunters flock. 
 Gold fountain-cup, with handles Florentine, 
 Shows Acteons horned, though armed and booted fine, 
 Who fight with sword in hand against the hounds. 
 Roses and gladioles ma...Read more of this...

by Graves, Robert
...bat 
For billeting and things like that,
If Siegfried learns the piccolo 
To charm the people as we go. 

The jolly peasants clad in furs 
Will greet the Welch-ski officers 
With open arms, and ere we pass
Will make us vocal with Kavasse. 
In old Bagdad we’ll call a halt 
At the S?shuns’ ancestral vault; 
We’ll catch the Persian rose-flowers’ scent, 
And understand what Omar meant.
Bitlis and Mush will know our faces, 
Tiflis and Tomsk, and all such places. 
P...Read more of this...



by Drayton, Michael
...the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;
Arms were from shoulders sent,
Scalps to the teeth were rent,
Down the French peasants went:
Our men were hardy.

This while our noble King,
His broad sword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding,
As to o'erwhelm it.
And many a deep wound lent,
His arms with blood besprent,
And many a cruel dent
Bruised his helmet.

Gloster, that duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood
With his brave brother.Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...yman, who calls
On distant England's name.

A shot is fired---by foe or friend?
Another---'tis to tell
The mountain-peasants to descend,
And lead us where they dwell.

Oh! who in such a night will dare
To tempt the wilderness?
And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear
Our signal of distress?

And who that heard our shouts would rise
To try the dubious road?
Nor rather deem from nightly cries
That outlaws were abroad.

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!
More f...Read more of this...

by Voznesensky, Andrei
...paper vision. 

 Long live creative Antiworlds, 
 great fantasy amidst daft words! 
 There are wise men and stupid peasants, 
 there are no trees without deserts. 

 There're Antimen and Antilorries, 
 Antimachines in woods and forests. 
 There's salt of earth, and there's a fake. 
 A falcon dies without a snake. 

 I like my dear critics best. 
 The greatest of them beats the rest 
 for on his shoulders there's no head, 
 he's got an Antihead instead...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...ronze breast, and a bronze-brown wing,
Captured the world with his carolling.
Late at night his tune was spent.
Peasants,
Sages,
Children,
Homeward went,
And then the bronze bird sang for you and me.
We walked alone. Our hearts were high and free.
I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name,
I had a silvery name — do you remember
The name you cried beside the tumbling sea?"

Chang turned not to the lady slim—
He bent to his work, ironing away;
But she was a...Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...lages illum'd
The waste of water; and the wind, that howl'd
Along its troubled surface, brought the groans
Of plunder'd peasants, and the frantic shrieks
Of mothers for their children; while the brave,
To pity still alive, listen'd aghast
To these dire echoes, hopeless to prevent
The evils they beheld, or check the rage,
Which ever, as the people of one land
Meet in contention, fires the human heart
With savage thirst of kindred blood, and makes
Man lose his nature; rendering...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...gacy --
Death, but our rapt attention
To Immortality.

My figures fail to tell me
How far the Village lies --
Whose peasants are the Angels --
Whose Cantons dot the skies --
My Classics veil their faces --
My faith that Dark adores --
Which from its solemn abbeys
Such ressurection pours....Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...nich our friend,
And Charles's miserable end,
And much beside, two days; the third,
Hunger o'ercame me when I heard
The peasants from the village go
To work among the maize; you know,
With us, in Lombardy, they bring
Provisions packed on mules, a string
With little bells that cheer their task,
And casks, and boughs on every cask
To keep the sun's heat from the wine;
These I let pass in jingling line,
And, close on them, dear noisy crew,
The peasants from the village too;
For ...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...the guest of Avalon.
Believe me, it lies there
Behind the mighty gray sea-wall
Where heathen bend in prayer:
Where peasants lift adoring eyes
To Fuji's crown of snow.
King Arthur's knights will be your hosts,
So cleanse your heart, and go.

"And you will find but gardens sweet
Prepared beyond the seas,
And you will find but gentlefolk
Beneath the cherry-trees.
So walk you worthy of your Christ
Tho church bells do not sound,
And weave the bands of brotherhood
...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...he hand that for my father fought
     I honor, as his daughter ought;
     But can I clasp it reeking red
     From peasants slaughtered in their shed?
     No! wildly while his virtues gleam,
     They make his passions darker seem,
     And flash along his spirit high,
     Like lightning o'er the midnight sky.
     While yet a child,—and children know,
     Instinctive taught, the friend and foe,—
     I shuddered at his brow of gloom,
     His shadowy plaid an...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...Good Father!… ’Twas an eve in middle June,
And war was waged anew 
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn 
Men’s bones all Europe through. 

Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed
The Sambre at Charleroi, 
To move on Brussels, where the English host 
Dallied in Parc and Bois. 

The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun 
Growl t...Read more of this...

by Levis, Larry
...vic into German,
Then to a shred of Latin spliced with oohs
And hisses. Even when I tried the simplest phrases,
The peasants passing over those uneven stones
Paused just long enough to look up once,
Uncomprehendingly. Then they turned
Quickly away, vanishing quietly into that
Moment, like bark chips whirled downriver.
It was autumn. Beyond each village the wind
Threw gusts of yellowing leaves across the road.
The goats I passed were thin, gray; their hind ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ormitories ranged, row after row,
She saw the priests asleep,--all of one sort,
For all were educated to be so.
The peasants in their huts, and in the port
The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,
And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves.

And all the forms in which those spirits lay
Were to her sight like the diaphanous
Veils in which those sweet ladies oft array
Their delicate limbs who would conceal from us
Only their scorn of all concealment: they
Move i...Read more of this...

by Francis, Robert
...Lingo of birds was easier than lingo of peasants-
they were elusive, though, the birds, for excellent reasons.
He thought of Virgil, Virgil who wasn't there to chat with.

History he never forgave for letting Latin
lapse into Italian, a renegade jabbering
musical enough but not enough to call music

So he conversed with stones, imperial and papal.
Even the preposterous popes he could c...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...br>

Once Prince Frederick's Guard
Sang them in their smoky barracks;--
Suddenly the English cannon
Joined the chorus!

Peasants in the field,
Sailors on the roaring ocean,
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,
All have sung them.

Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,--

Quiet...Read more of this...

by Levertov, Denise
...go, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
it is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed those mirrors
there was time only to scream.
There is an echo yet
of their speech which was like a song.
It was reported their singing ...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs